The Ninth Strange Day

I got home from work yesterday and tripped over two large, heavy boxes from Amazon. Kitti gave me that look that says “What have you bought now” so before I even said hello I said “I don’t remember ordering anything.”

So I opened the boxes (like ya do) and inside each one was one book. As in two different books, one in each box. Not one book in two boxes. Both by photographer Annie Leibovitz. A Photographer’s Life: 1990-2005 and Women.

I’d just recently seen the photo she took of the queen and mentioned to Mim how much I loved her stuff. So Mim ordered me two whole books.

Hey, Mim? I also love dogs! :D

Canada’s postal system has stopped delivering mail to a home in Winnipeg, Manitoba, after a mail carrier was scared away by a “very threatening cat,” the Winnipeg Free Press said Friday.

Source

That’s Canada for you.

In other news, the old Urban Legend about insects moving into your head is true.

I’ve never been to DragonCon before, but I really think I want to go this year.

The more I think about it, the better the idea sounds.

I’m talking about combining politics and American Idol.

No, wait! Hear me out. This is a plan that could work. Performance competition is really popular. Millions of people watch American Idol. Lots of places have their own version of it. There’s Dancing with the Stars, Skating with the Stars, shows that choose the cast for musicals, model competitions, hair competitions, home designer competitions, clothing designer competitions… why not combine all of this and turn it into the biggest, most spectacular political arena?

Need to choose a president? Give each candidate three months to stage, cast (using only staff members/coworkers/whatever you have in your current position), rehearse, build a set, get costumes, and perform a musical number. Just one! I mean, let’s be fair. These people all have other jobs to do, so a whole musical is really asking a bit much.

They would then do the production live (with a live orchestra, to greatly reduce the possibility of lip synching), televised to whatever region is affected by the outcome (That way people in Georgia wouldn’t have to see the Governor’s race from Montana, etc. Canada would probably still have to suffer through anything from a border location, and anything on the National level).

There would be a panel of judges who would provide input at the end of each performance, and recap their thoughts at the end of all of the contestants. The viewing audience would then be given 72 hours to phone in their votes.

There would have to be a few rules in place, naturally.

• No ringers. No going out and putting a professional singer or dancer or or theatrical director or choreographer or anyone like that on your staff.
• The person actually running for office doesn’t have to be the lead but should at the very least be in the chorus. No hiding in the back and being “only” the director.
• Special effects are a bonus.

Voting would require a special code number. Do voter registration cards have an ID number? Anyhow, it’d work like this…

1. You call the toll-free number for the candidate you choose.
2. You’re prompted to enter your ID number. The system checks against the database, ensures that it’s a valid number and has not already been used to vote, and thanks you for your time. You’d be given three attempts to enter your ID number. If you get it wrong three times in a row the system will disconnect you.
3. That’s it! You’ve done your civic duty and gotten a little show out of it.

There’s a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff that’d have to be considered for tabulating the votes, of course. Maybe something could be put in place that sets off a warning if too many calls come from the same number.

There’s probably other things that should be considered before putting this plan into action, but it’s only 8:30 and I haven’t had coffee, so I haven’t thought that far ahead yet. No system is without its flaws. Especially at the start. Given a little time, enough funding for research, and … coffee, actually… we’ll probably be able to write up a workable plan in time for the 2008 elections.

Tune in next week to hear my “Steel Cage Matches Should Decide Wars” proposal.

Are ya like me? Do you “forget” things like holidays and events like birthdays? Even when you have someone like your mother dropping hints and “gently” reminding you about things like Christmas and birthdays and… oh… Mother’s Day?

I forget. I always forget and then I have to go online and buy something fast and pay extra for speedy shipping and then I pretend like I had it all along. Or if I don’t get the speedy shipping I make up some excuse about it being out of stock and I’m waiting to hear when it’s shipped.

Fret no more! You can get Last Minute Mothers Day Gifts for Guaranteed Mother’s Day Delivery! Instead of hunting through scores of stores looking for the perfect thing, just go to this site and look through hundreds of items at once. If you order by the 9^th, your order is guaranteed to be in your hands (or hers if you ship directly to ‘er) by Mother’s Day. Which is the 13^th. If you’re in the US or Canada. If you’re in the UK, you’ve totally missed Mothering Sunday. You might want to shop and get something fast to apologise.

There are thousands of things in dozens of categories, and some of them are in limited supply. And you have a deadline if you want it in time for Mother’s Day, so GO SHOP NOW!

I was a few updates behind on the WordPress software, so I did the upgrading this evening. Unfortunately some of the changes were to some of the things in the templates and the ones I was using weren’t quite compatible.

They could have been, but I’d done so much hacking around with them that the code was “sort of” jumbled and it was easier to start with a new, clean template.

Aside from the graphic up-top I think I’m pleased with the way it looks. That link up there that says Disclosure is to the disclosure page that’s required since I’m doing the paid/sponsored posting. What it says (in a nutshell) is that I’m going to get paid for some of these posts, and there will be no conflict of interest and I won’t tell you something is wonderful when it really isn’t. Why? Because I have full control over what topics I choose to write about. I’m not going to pick anything I don’t believe in, or that could cause any sort of conflict of interest with my job or with Kitti’s.

I’m going to go watch the rest of Criminal Minds now, and then come back and poke the header graphic with a stick until it does something I like.